


I Need Help

by writermouse



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Caretaking, Fever, Illnesses, Panic, Paranoia, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-19 20:49:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17608724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writermouse/pseuds/writermouse
Summary: Shuichi has a fever and doesn't know what to do. He manages to get himself to Kokichi, who also doesn't really know what to do.





	I Need Help

Shuichi couldn’t understand what was possibly happening to him. He’d woken up soaking wet, sweat dripping from from his hair and running down his back. But also entirely unable to stop shaking from how cold he was. His hands trembled, his teeth chattered. He felt absolutely chilled to the bone, even wrapped up tightly in a blanket and his pajamas. Touching his skin with his hands, it felt hot, but he couldn’t understand how when he was so unbearably cold. His head felt fuzzy and it took him several minutes to come up with even an attempted solution. 

He dragged himself up from the bed and stumbled toward the bathroom, keeping the blanket clutched around him. His head pounded from the exertion and the lights seemed painfully, unnaturally bright. His stomach turned and felt overly full all at the same time. His legs began to give out at the doorway and he slumped against it for a moment, trying to catch his breath. 

The blanket fell away- he was unable to grip it any longer- and fluttered to the floor as he took another determined step into the room. With a shaking hand, he reached into the shower to turn on the water. If he could just get under warm enough water, he’d have to warm up. Even if he were made of ice, it had to work. And it was the fastest way he could conceive of to correct the problem, though he probably would have to lie down in the shower floor, if how wretched he felt standing was anything to go by. Shuichi caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror as he tried to force his hands to steady enough to have the coordination to unbutton his pajama top. His cheeks were flushed and red, his eyes glassy. 

He gave up on the shirt and shed his pants by pushing them down off of his hips and allowing them to fall, then just stepped into the shower. Some other time, when he wasn’t freezing, and shaky, and so miserable he may soon wish for death, he’d spare some emotional space for the embarrassment of getting into the shower without having removed his shirt, but right now, nothing could be further from relevant. Muscles he didn’t even know he had strained under the effort of keeping him upright. He swayed in place, keeping mostly under the water, but needing to flail his arms periodically to keep his balance.

The water revived him, but only to a point, and it was a symptoms trade off. He stood under the hot stream for a few minutes, intermittently tipping his head back and opening his mouth to drink some. Then he sank down, leaning against the shower wall, to sit under the water instead. His shaking stilled, his headache eased slightly, and the painful thirst he hadn’t even consciously noticed vanished. He felt a little bit stronger. But, after standing there for a bit, he noticed a new problem. He was now nearly unbelievably too hot. He felt his skin might burn itself somehow and his thoughts were even harder to follow than before. 

He focused in on a single idea and tried to make it happen. I need help. He repeated that a few times under his breath and started the process, mentally checking off the necessary steps. Reach up to the shower knob and turn the shower off. Check. Lean forward enough to put weight on knees instead. Check. Shuffle around so feet are against the floor again. Check. Reach up to safety bar and grasp it. Check. Struggle to feet. Struggle to feet. It took a few tries, but eventually he could think: check. 

To get help, he needed to leave the room. To leave the room, he needed to be dressed. He already had a shirt on, though it was dripping water everywhere. That was probably alright enough. He staggered out of the shower and fumbled for the pants he’d left in the floor. He pulled them on, grateful that his balance seemed to be slightly improved from the shower, at least. As he hadn’t dried off, the fabric stuck to his legs, but it didn’t cause a significant problem. He took a few deep breaths and began the process of shuffling out of the room. 

He wasn’t sure what had woken him, so he had no concept of the current time. He hoped it was a time that people would be out and about, he’d rather not have to knock on someone’s door. He didn’t want to try to choose who to ask. Exiting the room, he looked around. It seemed bright outside, so hopefully someone would be about. It could be morning, though he was confused about how he’d missed the announcement in any case. 

He started making his way to the dining hall. It was the most common place for someone to certainly be, though he might well run into someone on the way. His thoughts were scattered and drifted from observation to observation. He was sweating again, his skin felt on fire. And he was seeing spots in front of his eyes. He wondered if the grass had always seemed so green. 

After a moment, he realized he’d stopped moving and was staring at the grass. I need help. He reminded himself. It was so hard to focus. He tore his eyes from the ground and looked around. Just there, on the edge of his vision, he spied a figure in white, with messy purple hair. 

His feet knew what to do, even if the rest of him didn’t, and they carried him briskly toward Kokichi, nearly tripping over themselves in their approximation of running. 

Kokichi. I need help. Kokichi. I need help. He mentally rehearsed his line, using the repetition to focus his efforts until he was close enough to him to call out. 

“Kelp!” he blinked as he heard himself mix up the syllables. He’d thought he had it clear in mind. The concepts were certainly in order. But apparently he’d have to work a bit harder on the vocalization. 

“K-kelp?” Kokichi stifled a giggle at the nonsense as he turned around. The rest of the laugh died in his throat. While the situation was certainly absurd enough to be humorous: Shuichi was running toward him in soaking wet pajamas, moving like he was completely drunk, and shouting about seaweed, it was far more relevantly alarming. Shuichi wasn’t the sort of person who would be in that situation unless something was very wrong. His flushed face and the lack of focus in his eyes merely stood to confirm that. 

Shuichi shook his head, the exhaustion of attempting to run catching up with him just as he reached Kokichi. He reached out to grasp at his shirt as his vision began to go dark. “Help.” It was a mere mumble now, but Kokichi was close enough to hear. 

“Okay, whoa, I gotcha!” Kokichi forced a grin, ignoring his heart pounding in his chest. He wrapped his arms around Shuichi and lowered him to the ground slowly so he didn’t get hurt and could just rest on the soft grass. 

“You must be a million degrees!” he added, placing a palm on Shuichi’s forehead to confirm. He’d felt hot enough through his shirt, but being on his bare skin was nearly painful. He knelt by Shuichi’s head and chewed at his thumbnail, trying to figure out what to do. Clearly Shuichi was sick. Very sick. Dangerously sick. But what did that mean? Who could help? Or how? 

Shuichi allowed his eyes to fall closed as he focused on his breathing. While it hadn’t yet yielded results, he felt his job was over. He’d needed help and managed to tell someone. That had taken all of the energy he had and he was resting now, whether it was convenient or not. His mind drifted between waking and sleep. He could see Kaede at the piano, she smiled at him. 

Kokichi frowned, watching Shuichi’s chest rise and fall. If he were going to die, surely he’d seem worse? He hoped that was true, but he couldn’t actually identify a way that he would tell. “Shuichi-chan, what do I do? How do I help?” 

“Lune,” Shuichi couldn’t remember the rest of the name of the song. It was something. It seemed important, but he didn’t remember why. Why did he need to be talking? 

“Loon? What??” Kokichi bit his lip. If he didn’t do something, this could be really bad. And in any case, he probably shouldn’t just leave Shuichi on the ground, but it didn’t look like he’d be walking again soon. Maybe he should tell someone else, but who? And how? He could hardly leave Shuichi lying on the ground alone. “Shuichi… just… I need you to tell me what to do. Come on. How do I help you??” 

Shuichi felt his anxiety rising, but he couldn’t identify why. The music in his head wasn’t as pretty now. Something bad was happening instead. Kaede was leaving. “Don’t go!” he clutched at the air. 

“I don’t think you’re talking to me, but I’m not going anywhere,” Kokichi patted his cheek. “You should be talking to me though… I don’t know what to do…” A genuine tear slipped down his cheek and he gritted his teeth. He had to pull it together at least enough to do something. 

Fortunately, just the right person came lumbering through just then, searching for bugs. 

“Hey, hey Gonta!” Kokichi called beckoning him over, “Gonta, I need help!” 

“Is Kokichi lying?” Gonta asked, looking at him somewhat suspiciously, “Gonta will help, but Kokichi should not lie to Gonta.” 

“No, I really need help this time! I need you to carry my beloved Shuichi-chan to my room! Nee-heehee! He got too excited to see me and fainted!” Kokichi quirked a smile. That was a much more interesting story than the truth and he wasn’t sure how much everyone should know. 

Gonta blinked. That seemed vaguely implausible, but Shuichi was lying on the ground in front of Kokichi, apparently immobile. “Okay… Gonta help.” He reached down and gathered Shuichi into his arms. “Shuichi have fever! No wonder he collapsed!” He wondered why he was out in pajamas and dripping wet as well, but decided that was probably not important enough to ask. 

Kokichi giggled and nodded, “Yeah, he wasn’t feeling too well. I guess he just got overwhelmed. Come on!” he tugged Gonta by his sleeve and they made their way back to Kokichi’s room. 

Shuichi’s eyes fluttered open as he felt himself being moved. The big, strong arms around him were a comfort. He hoped he would stop being so hot soon though, it made every touch a bit unpleasant. 

“You going to take care of fever?” Gonta asked, now a bit worried. Shuichi being sick without good medicine could be a problem. 

“Yep! No worries!” Kokichi smiled up at him, letting them in the room. Gonta was probably too stupid to understand anything on his whiteboard anyway, but he made sure to flip it on the way past so all he could see where his doodles of robots. “What would you do though?” 

Gonta gently laid Shuichi down on Kokichi’s bed. “Well, Gonta not know exactly what to do. But would bring fever down first. Cool water on cloths on him. Gonta’s forest family would make soothing salve with plants, but Gonta not sure if they’re here. But water always heal. Cool water for fever. Cold for injury. Hot for mucus or muscle pain.” 

Shuichi could hear them talking, but couldn’t make sense of anything they were saying. Water. Water would be nice. He wondered if he was thirsty or if he wanted to swim. He couldn’t do anything about either thought though, so it didn’t much matter.

Kokichi blinked, slightly confused. He resolved to find out more about his forest family later because he was pretty sure that Gonta had said they were wolves before, but there was no way wolves were making anything out of plants. “Okay thanks Gonta! You can leave now!” He pushed him back toward the door. The thing about water would help, but now he needed the extra person out of his room. He needed a locked door between everyone who could be dangerous and Shuichi.

“Gonta come back later to check on Shuichi,” he nodded, then allowed himself to be ushered out of the room. 

“Don’t worry, Shuichi-chan,” Kokichi sighed, going to run some cold water onto washcloths to put on him, “I’ll take care of you.” I need help. The thought nagged at the back of his mind, and he knew it was true. He was out of his element. But using Gonta to move Shuichi had been risky enough. There was no one he could trust, so there was no one he could ask. He could only hope he’d be enough to fix this. .


End file.
